UNWORTHY ENEMY - FAIR WEATHER FRIEND

It's ridiculous being accused of having borrowed ideas from the French painter Currado Malaspina but that's precisely what has happened!

It is absurd, I say! All one has to do is just look at the dates!

Nonetheless, Therese Baltoniere-Éstès has published a scathing and sloppy critical analysis of my alleged debt.

And in the summer issue of Impulsion Monochromatique no less!!

The Body Is His Book, # 10, David Schoffman, 2009

Above is The Body Is His Book #10, completed in late spring 2009. It is patently absurd, as Baltoniere-Éstès claims, that certain stylistic motifs were lifted wholesale from Malaspina's 2010 Palimpseste III #6 (below).  

Palimpseste III #6, Currado Malaspina, 2010

                                                               

Though it is true, as she points out, that together with Malaspina I took a research trip to Thailand in 2006 and that at that time we collaborated on several 'process drawings' based on our study of ritual Buddhist painting. And yes, it is equally true that we likened ourselves at the time to Picasso and Braque though our linkage was more akin to delirious inmates than to cubist mountaineers.

But proximity does not in itself suggest influence nor does it imply artistic larceny. If anything, the winds of appropriation were blowing in the opposite direction, as has already been pointed out by Orestia Shetov (see Les risques d'amitié: Le péril de l'influence. Éditions Dix, 2014).

I suspect that Malaspina has had a hand in this, something he does from time to time when he detects a sudden slippage of his stock. The problem is that the French are notoriously amnesic in matters of scholarship and taste and these new allegations are gaining currency in both the academy and the press.

As I begin my counter-offensive I would like to state clearly that I harbor no animus toward my good friend Currado Malaspina. As an habitual liar he is prone to self-serving fantasies and exaggerations. The fact that he has been is a state of artistic decline for the better part of the past decade should in no way suggest that I hold him in disesteem.

His desperate attempt to discredit my reputation is just more evidence (as if more were needed) that Currado's sociopathic approach to careerism will readily breech even the most basic codes of professional decency.

I pity the poor man.